Blwyddyn 4

Welcome to Year Four!

Our class project for this term is ‘Bee Friendly’.

Launch date: World Bee Day on 20th May

Year Four are continuing on their journeys to become eco warriors with a project all about the importance of bees! We hope to help our school gain Bee Friendly status as we learn more about why we need to protect the bees alongside ways we can help to increase the bee population. We will be using our skills across a range of curriculum areas to help with this project as well as hopefully spending a lot of time outdoors! We have become really passionate about the plastic crisis and hope to become just as knowledgeable about these insects! We look forward to sharing all of our new learning with our families and the wider community.

During our project the children will be given the opportunity to choose what they would like to learn and how they would like to develop their project. We will share some of the exciting things we learn with you as our project develops through regular class updates (see below). Throughout our project the children will be developing as:
• ambitious, capable learners, ready to learn throughout their lives
• enterprising, creative contributors, ready to play a full part in life and work
• ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world
• healthy, confident individuals, ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.

If you would like to get involved in our project and have expertise in any aspect of our project that you would like to bring into school, please contact the school office.

Class Updates

We’re going to be busy this term! You can follow some of our progress on the Glasllwch Twitter page: @GlasllwchP
In addition, please see your child’s individual link to their SeeSaw page. This can be found in the back of their homework books!

Class Information

The following information about Year Four may be helpful. Any unexpected changes or updates to the following information will be communicated through SeeSaw or Twitter.

Reading

Thank you for your continued support with your child’s reading. The key to success in reading is to read as often as possible and it is so important that your child reads at home as well as in school.

In Year Four, we take part in guided reading every morning as part of a carousel of reading activities throughout the week.
Children will take part in a focused reading session with the class teacher once a week and spend the rest of the week completing reading activities linked to what they have read in their session with the teacher, reading a variety of different texts independently and reading for pleasure. While children are still reading PM levelled books, they will bring a levelled book home once a week to read. When children are confident enough readers and are no longer suited to the levelled books, children will no longer bring a levelled book home to read. It is still important that your child reads at home but we encourage them to read a book of their choosing whether that is from the library, a book from their own bookshelf at home or a even a newspaper or magazine. I have attached a list of questions you may like to use to help challenge your child with their reading. Reading is not just about reading words, but showing understanding and inference as well as many other skills.

The Year Four library is stocked with lots of reading materials but if your child would like to bring in a book or magazine from home to read during these sessions they are more than welcome to! We encourage children to read what they enjoy!

Spelling

Spellings will be sent out on a Friday ready for testing the following Friday. In some cases, spellings may be targeted to groups or individuals, depending on what we feel is the most beneficial. Accurate spelling is important for children’s writing development and practising spellings at home makes a big difference to children’s writing within the classroom! We encourage the “look-cover-write-check” method for learning spellings.

Numeracy

We are determined to be times table experts in Year Four! As with reading, it is really important to rehearse these at home as well. We will begin working on fast recall of 3 and 4 times table. We will then move onto 6.

Homework

In addition to learning spellings and practising multiplication and division facts, we may ask for your support in helping your child with our class project in different ways. The homework and spellings will be set either in your child’s homework book or on our online collaborative learning environment (Google Classroom) where children can complete and submit their work.
Google Classroom logins are the same as they were in Year 3. Please do contact me if your child is unable to login for whatever reason.

PE

P.E. lessons are on a Wednesday morning (outside) and a Friday morning (inside). Please ensure that the children have appropriate kit in school on these days, in particular a warm kit for games outside during the winter months. The children will be reminded of the school health and safety policy of no jewellery being worn during these lessons. If your child is unable to take out their earrings, please provide plasters in their PE bag.